Latest news and comments

23/03/2005: Well, a year after my last entry I am back ! A new business and career has kept me busy over the last 12 months but things are getting better now so I will have time for amateur radio again ! I am looking forward to talking to all my old friends again !

21/03/2004: I have had great news, the results from the 2003 WPX SSB contest has been released and I have won the QRP section !. I knew that I had a good score but I never thought that it was THAT great ! Now I am really inspired to do even better in the future...

18/02/2004: I have not been active in amateur radio for a while due to work pressure and a move that meant that I have to rebuild my antenna farm. The move was needed because of ill health on my fathers side. Things are looking up now so I am hoping to be on the air more in the near future.

23/07/2003: I am looking at a new antenna for 40m, this is mostly aimed at DX'ing and at the 2003 CQWW SSB and CW contests. I am planning on trying my best for these contests running a high power station for a change to try and give the "big boys" a go !. I have not decided on the design of the antenna yet as I am still doing research but I will publish my findings here on the web. 

18/07/2003: The results of a local contest, the HAMNET 40m simulated emergency contest, was published and ZS6DX/p, consisting of myself and Katti-ZS6KVR, took top honors, for the second year running in the multi operator field station category.

11/07/2003: Things have been very quiet on the radio front, I have not had much time to spend on the air but DXCC entity 300 finally appeared in the log !. Conditions on HF have not been to great but seems to be getting better now with summer approaching. We have a few local contests coming up in August so I am hoping to have some fun.

28/05/2003: Well, the WPX contest is now history. I must admit that I had to work really hard for my contacts this time but it was still fun ! It took me a few days to recover from the contest as it left me rather tired, the fact that I had a light flu did not exactly help ! I was very happy that again my station proved to be reliable without any technical problems. When I started contesting a few years ago I always seemed to have problems with equipment during a contest.  As far as future contests go I am starting to think about participating in the IARU HF World Championships, it should be fun ! I have also redone a few things on the this web-page. The fancy JAVA buttons that I used proved to be to slow to download and did not work correctly on all browsers so it is back to the old, boring, text buttons !

22/05/2003: I have just started a revamp of this site, I got tired of the old look !. This is a "work in progress" as I am still playing with different looks so don't be surprised if it looks totally different the next time you visit. There are only 2 days left before the CQ WW WPX CW contest. I have already noticed lots of rare activity on the bands so it looks like lots of stations have been set up in semi rare places. This always makes for an exiting contest !. Even just working a few stations casually before the contest while checking every thing in the shack produced contacts with stations like 4W3DX, P40Q and a few other unusual ones. I will be happy with 1 new DXCC entity for the contest to get my total to 300 !. I have still not decided on final strategy like power level and bands to be worked. I will probably only make that decision a few hours before the contest based on conditions. My current choice is low power all band but I might change to high power if conditions are poor. The last few night the lower band have been in great shape with very little static (only S5 and not the normal S9 +20db !) so I am also hoping for some good contacts there to add to my band totals. My station will be setup for SO2R (Single Operator 2 Radio) but even the choice of radios has not been made. I will be doing the final configuration tonight and I will then make the choice. It might be the 2 x IC-756's or I might use one of them for the higher bands and the FT-1000MP or TS-870S for the lower bands. I must still regain trust in the FT-1000MP on CW after a recent problem with the side-tone that is now fixed !.  

20/05/2003: It looks like 6m have now finally closed for the season. I still listen whenever I am in the shack but I have not heard anything the last few weeks. The next season starts in September but with the solar cycle winding down it might not be all that spectacular with probably only a few weak openings into Southern Europe. I am considering taking my 6m beam down from the tower after the PEARS digital contest in June. I believe I can make better use of the space on the tower with a beam for 12/17/30m or even a small 40m beam over the next few years. I am still thinking about my level of participation in our upcoming VHF/UHF digital contest. I will be on the air making a few contacts but I must admit the right now I find digital operation rather boring. I believe it takes very little technique or skill as the computer does all the work. The person with the best location/biggest amplifier is sure to win this contest even if he/she is not such a great operator !, maybe I am wrong, I will give the contest a try before I make a final decision on the digital modes. I believe they are useful to allow you to make contacts that you would not normally be able to make but I find that after a contact like that I feel rather empty and not exactly exited or proud of my accomplishment. Not like making the same contact on SSB or CW would have felt !. I suppose different strokes for different folks :-) 

18/05/2003: Just had an interesting weekend with the bands in good condition and a bit of time to work them. Saturday brought a few new band-countries including a new one on 40m and a new one on 30m but Sunday was really great with an all-time new on  15m CW. 4W3DX was bagged after quite a few calls. He was working 3khz up but he never announced that. It was relative early in the morning so the band was not really open. Because of that I could not hear the pile-up for the first 30 minutes or so. I had NO idea where the guy was listening till the conditions improved and I could hear a weak pile-up, then it did not take long !. I spend some time over the weekend doing some maintenance on antennas and equipment in preparation of the CQ WW WPX CW contest next weekend. I hope conditions will be as good as they were this weekend !. See you in the contest.

14/05/2003: I have finally raised my dipole antennas up to about 22m, only to have a storm the next night that broke one of them !, at least it is done as the next major contest, CQ WPX CW is getting close....

09/05/2003: I have started preparation for the CQ WW WPX CW contest, I will be raising my 40 and 80m antennas by about 5m and giving the yagis and rotators a service over the next few days. I have not decided what category I will be entering as that depends on the conditions but at the moment it looks like it might be a single band high power entry.

07/05/2003: Conditions on HF have not been that great the last few days, the bands are quiet even when there are openings, the few stations I hear are loud. I am not sure why this is, maybe everyone in the northern hemisphere is enjoying spring !. I hope conditions are going to be better for CQ WW WPX CW !

05/05/2003: It looks like the best part of our 6m season is over now, I have not heard any signals for the last few days. I have acquired a new radio, a Yaesu FT-990 will all the filters as a backup contest radio along with a Yaesu FL-7000 solid state amplifier that will also be used for contesting. It runs our legal limit, 400W, all day without getting hot.

29/04/2003: We had 2 more big openings on 6m over the last few days, the openings were so good that it was actually bad !. The pile-ups were unruly with operators not listening. Many operators insist on not giving a complete call, THEY WILL NEVER GET INTO MY LOG !!, some stations, after a call or 2, if they did not get a reply, would start calling CQ right on the pile-up !. I ended up going QRT twice in the middle of the openings because of this. I have also added a few new calls to my black list, the guys who will never get into my log.... The best thing to do when it gets like that is to go QRT or hunt for some new ones but not call CQ. I have also found that if  I wait for the conditions to deteriorate I can then make a few good contacts on CW. Shame on all those bad operators, you spoil it for everyone !

25/04/2003: We are having almost daily openings on 6m into Europe, I am working mostly CW and every time I give a CQ call I end up with a small pile-up. Many stations don't even move the S meter but copy is 100%. There are always a few stations that are 599+, they must have great stations !. I am now mostly collecting grid squares and things like Italian provinces on 6m. On HF, even with the solar cycle supposedly winding down, there are great openings , even on 10m I can still work good DX till quite late in the evening.

23/04/2003: Easter weekend provided 2 6m openings, Thursday evening we had a small opening into the Mediterranean and western Europe but on Friday we had a major opening into Europe, I had a nice pile-up going with many new calls appearing in the log. stations were worked from I, 4X, F, G, YT, SM, OM and PA. I also heard a SU station and a few other weak stations. Saturday I also had lots of fun working stations in the Holy land contest.

16/04/2003: We had a short opening into Europe on 6m last night from about 1330 UTC. Signals were strong but it did not last long, at one point the TV carrier on 48.250MHz was up to a S9.

14/04/2003: I have now, finally installed my new 6m antenna. My old homebrew log-yagi has been slowly falling apart over the last few years, it got so bad that I did not even bother to put it up at the new QTH. When the chance came along to acquire a 6 element yagi on a 8m boom, a Hy-Gain model 343 I could not resist. Within minutes of the antenna going up we had a short opening into Europe and I could not believe how well the antenna works. This antenna with combined with the FT-847 with its hot receiver and the converted SB200 should help me to put out a good signal on 6 in the future. Hope to work you all soon !

13/04/2003: We, my XYL Katti and myself competed in the low key Hamnet simulated emergency 40m contest today, running a multi operator portable station. Conditions were not to great with lots of noise on 40m but we still had fun. We used our normal field station mast with inverted V dipole, driven by a FT-890 at 25w running on a 102Ah battery, enough power for the 2 hour contest. The totals were not great but we did exceed our last year's (winning) total by about 30%. This is a contest that Katti really enjoys so she ended up making most of the contacts with me doing the logging. Apart from all the normal ZS stations we also had 2 7P8 stations and a lonely A22 station.

03/04/2003: Tonight I spend a hour or so giving some points out in a local 80m QSO party, amazing how active the band can become when we have a contest. It was nice to work some old friends and make some new. If I look at my logbook I see that some guys are only worked one a year during one of the local contests. It was good to hear some 3DA stations joining in the fun a s well. 

30/03/2003: I have just had the most fun I have had for a long time (on the air!) during the WW WPX DX contest. Running QRP I managed 1094 contacts, many pileups and 2 brand new countries. Not bad for a weekends work during a time of the solar cycle when things are supposed to be quiet !. Can't wait for the next DX contest !. My DXCC combined total now up to 298.